In a 4-0 vote without comment Tuesday, the county Board of Supervisors formally approved the Executive Office’s revised “anonymous incident reporting system.”

Anyone associated with county government who has witnessed or become aware of alleged acts that conflict with the county’s Code of Ethics can file reports via www.auditorcontroller.org, or 833-590-0004.

The phone number features prompts, while the website directs visitors to a site listed at the top of the home page designated “Report Fraud, Waste and Abuse 24/7.”

Previously, other online and telephonic reporting methods were available, but they’ve since been deactivated.

“It is the duty of every employee to report any known violation of this (ethical conduct) policy, or what would appear to a reasonable person to be a violation of this policy,” according to board Policy C-35. “Examples of reportable offenses include theft, conflicts of interest, misuse of county equipment or vehicles, embezzlement, bribes and kickbacks, abuse of work hours (and) inappropriate use of county credit cards.”

Policy C-35 was first implemented in January 1991 and later underwent revisions based on the California Citizen Complaint Act of 1997 and related legislation.

The county’s auditor-controller, currently Ben Benoit, is recognized as the initial processor of fraud, waste and abuse complaints, which are then assigned to the appropriate investigating agency, inside or outside the county.

“County employees shall adhere to and uphold the county’s Code of Ethics both in practice and in spirit,” according to the policy. “It is expected that employees act in the public’s interest first and not their own. It is further expected that their behavior, both on the job and off, reflects positively on the county, its reputation and its employees.”

The post See Fraud, Waste In RivCo? Report It Over New Number, Web Portal appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

DOGE’s efforts to stop USAID payments undermine assurances that the department gave to federal lawmakers in a Tuesday letter that it sought only to review the integrity of the payments and had “read-only access” to the system as part of an audit process.

The two people familiar with the matter spoke Thursday to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

The actions by DOGE, a Trump administration effort to find ways to reduce the federal workforce, cut programs and slash federal regulations, have raised concerns among civil servants, Democratic lawmakers and others that Musk’s team is withholding funds appropriated by Congress to suit the president’s political agenda.

USAID, a federal agency charged with delivering humanitarian assistance overseas, has been a particular target of President Donald Trump and Musk, both of whom have argued that much of the agency’s spending is wasteful. Supporters of the agency, however, say that it is essential for national security, helping counter Russian and Chinese influence while providing humanitarian assistance across the globe.

A judge on Thursday sided with advocates and federal workers unions who sought to stop the department from giving DOGE and Musk access to the payment systems. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly restricted DOGE’s read-only access to Tom Krause, a software CEO, and Marko Elez, who reported to Krause but has since left his role at Treasury. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Treasury Department’s Fiscal Service conducts over 1.2 billion transactions annually and accounts for 90% of federal disbursements, including for Social Security and Medicare.

Krause, who is listed online as the CEO of Cloud Software Group, works at the department as a special government employee and is subject to less stringent rules on ethics and financial disclosures than other federal workers.

The department’s acting deputy secretary, David Lebryk, retired after more than 30 years of service when Krause and DOGE requested access to sensitive data, the two people told The AP.

Trump ordered a funding freeze at USAID his first day in office, saying, “the United States foreign aid industry” was “not aligned with American interests.” The funding freeze and subsequent stop-work orders shuttered most U.S. programs, which are worth billions of dollars and are in more than 100 countries.

While the funding freeze is supposed to last for as little as 90 days, aid workers say the damage done to aid work globally would require extensive investment and rebuilding to mend. Musk has tweeted repeated criticisms and unsubstantiated accusations about USAID as his DOGE crew dismantles much of the agency.

“Spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” Musk tweeted early this week.

The news that the department was trying to stop foreign aid payments was first reported by The New York Times.

The post DOGE was tasked with stopping Treasury payments to USAID, AP sources say appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

The House has a new speaker, and now attention returns to whether a government “shutdown” can be averted before November 17. If only the American people could place the federal government in lockdown just as the unaccountable bureaucracy did to them during COVID’s oppressive hysteria. (So much for the people being in charge, eh?) In response to our unmanageable debt problem, there is an online meme that is spreading faster than Biden’s human trafficking business at the border: Government Shutdown — Fifteen Days to Flatten the Curve. Sounds like a good plan.

Shut ’er down, and we’ll see where we are in a couple weeks. If the debt and deficit haven’t improved, we’ll just have to keep the federal government in lockdown until our unsustainable spending problem is finally under control. For all those highly paid, partisan bureaucrats worried about their sinecures, stop being so selfish! We’re all in this together, after all. The experts are working at the speed of economics! Edward Holman says it best: “Had we merely refused to raise the debt ceiling one day forty years ago, the following morning Congress would have been forced to pay the debt service because we have always collected FAR more in tax revenue than needed to service the debt.”

Americans should call the government’s “bluff that we would all drown in a lake of fire” if the Leviathan doesn’t get everything it demands. In other words, until the federal government gains basic arithmetic and accounting skills and learns to live within a budget, shut ’er down! But how would the war hawks continue funding death and mayhem in Europe if they can no longer use American tax dollars to pay Ukraine’s government workforce and public sector pensions? Military strategist Larry Johnson has a good idea: President Volodymyr Zelenskyy should “make the rounds in Hollywood pitching a new soap opera — As the War Turns. It would be the story of a beleaguered Jewish comedian thrust into the seat of power, backed up by Nazi hordes, acquiescing to be the sock puppet of a malevolent Uncle Sam in exchange for a steady supply of Colombian cocaine and bags of cash.”

Hollywood could fund WWIII all by itself! Seriously, should American taxpayers be funding Ukrainian retirements when pension plans in the United States have been so mismanaged and dangerously underfunded that the next stock market quake will likely wipe out half of Americans’ own retirement nest eggs? Tucker Carlson, one of the few national figures willing to speak plainly about the threats to and concerns of the American people, said some remarkable things in a speech last Tuesday. He warned that “abrupt change” is heading our way. He argued that the United States may very well be on the “brink of collapse.” And he concluded that Americans, “regardless of political affiliation, can feel that something bad’s coming.” Meanwhile, our dishonest and incompetent ruling class is either asleep at the switch or actively rolling large boulders onto the tracks that lie ahead.

Rigged elections, rampant censorship, political persecution, an economic death spiral, and the growing prospect of this century’s first truly global war — yes, bad things are either here or quickly coming. Yet the media’s brainwashed minions prattle about “climate change,” “colonialism,” “diversity,” “equity,” Taylor Swift, and other false, foolish, or frivolous blather. It is also true that America’s leadership class has been found sorely wanting. It consists of frauds and thieves, murderers and misfits. Its butcher’s bill includes every victim of the experimental COVID “vaccine,” every casualty of the Uniparty’s open borders, every service-member sacrificed during Biden’s disastrous Afghanistan retreat, and the gone-but-never-forgotten veteran, Ashli Babbitt. Its allegiance belongs to central bank oligarchs and a royal clique of international elites who call no country home.

Americans-in-name-only run the U.S. government today. The only political leader in the last forty years who actually fought for Americans (instead of against them) is being railroaded in one courtroom after the next, gagged from speaking honestly, and threatened with life in prison for daring to honor his constitutional oath. The Fascist Bureau of Intimidation and Department of (in)Justice commit crimes against the American people but face no consequences.

The Department of Homeland Security has no interest in securing the homeland. The federal bureaucracy’s primary work product is disinformation, and its primary skill is accusing everyone outside of its Borg Collective of spreading disinformation. The same apparatchiks who take a knee in solidarity with Antifa and Black Lives Matter domestic terrorists have spent three years destroying families for protesting at the U.S. Capitol. The same conmen who framed Donald Trump as a Russian spy now frame the presumptive Republican nominee as a common criminal.

The same misanthropes who have drowned this country in debt, drugs, illegal aliens, and violent crime pretend to care about Americans’ health, security, and prosperity. They do not. They despise this country. They despise its foundations in liberty. They despise its history. They despise its heroes. They despise what its people have accomplished in the past and could so easily accomplish in the future, if only given the chance. Like some Marxist Globalist Bizarro World where the permanent ruling class engages in endless whack-a-mole to destroy everything good, reasonable, and sound, those helming the American ship today seek nothing less than to scuttle her deep into the sea.

Darkness is the Deep State’s friend. In the many battles that lie ahead, most of America’s “leaders” will continue taking a knee. They will play no part in protecting this nation from further harm. As agents of foreign powers, they have no interest in ameliorating Americans’ suffering. If unconstitutional surveillance, censorship, and “green”-energy-induced inflation had not already made that point crystal clear, COVID’s epidemic of rank totalitarianism really drove it home for good. Make no mistake, when the Doomsday Clock strikes midnight, We the People will be on our own. That’s okay.

America is much more than its government, and Americans are much more capable than those who insist on ruling over us. I’ll tell you now what I know to be true — we will get through what’s coming. The American government is corrupt, dangerous, and quasi-insane, but the American people still possess a unique and indomitable spirit. One of my favorite depictions of that spirit is retold in Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers. Easy Company is heading for the Ardennes Forest near Bastogne to face the Germans in what would be known as the Battle of the Bulge. Without food, winter clothing, or ammunition, the young soldiers have no support but each other.

A horrified lieutenant tells Captain Winters that his guys will be completely surrounded, but the captain responds assuredly, “We’re paratroopers, Lieutenant. We’re supposed to be surrounded.” An anonymous quote attributed to the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment then appears on a black screen: “Farthest from your mind is the thought of falling back; in fact, it isn’t there at all. And so you dig your hole carefully and deep, and wait.” I have always felt that we Americans were meant to be surrounded. Throw any manner of hardship our way, and we’ll somehow survive.

Send evil in our direction, and we’ll fight it tooth and nail. Just because the “woke” tyrants make all the noise, don’t underestimate those Americans who have carefully dug their holes and now patiently wait. For too many Americans, “falling back” will never be an option. “What one man can do, another can do,” Sir Anthony Hopkins memorably averred. What one generation of Americans can do, another can, too. Without help from a bloated government bureaucracy or a corrupt and worthless “ruling class,” Americans will endure. Sometimes, it is only when we are surrounded by danger that we find the courage and fellowship to stare down evil and prevail.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Americans Are Essential — Not Their Government appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing fresh challenges to his leadership, Speaker Kevin McCarthy is trying to accomplish what at times seems impossible — working furiously to convince House Republicans to come together and pass a conservative bill to keep the federal government open.

It’s a nearly futile exercise that could help McCarthy keep his job, but has little chance of actually preventing a federal shutdown. Whatever House Republicans come up with is nearly certain to be rejected by the Senate, where Democrats and most Republicans want to fund the government.

In one dramatic sign of defeat Tuesday, House Republicans were even voting against their own defense bill. During a rowdy afternoon vote, the usually popular bill was turned back from consideration, 212-214, after five hard-right conservatives helped sink it. They want to see an overall plan from McCarthy.

McCarthy simply walked off the House floor. “Look, the one thing you’re going to learn about me: I like a challenge — I don’t like this big a challenge — but we’re just gonna keep doing it until we can make it,” McCarthy told reporters.

With time dwindling, Congress faces a Sept. 30 deadline to pass the broader government funding legislation and get a bill to President Joe Biden’s desk to become law. Otherwise, the U.S. faces massive federal government closures and disruptions. Plans for another vote Tuesday to advance the overall spending bill were shelved.

“The ball’s in Kevin’s court,” said Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of the Freedom Caucus.

The latest House government funding proposal, a compromise between members of the hard-right Freedom Caucus and the more pragmatic Main Street conservatives, was almost dead on arrival, left sputtering even after McCarthy loaded it up with spending cuts and Republican priorities in a border security package.

Behind closed doors Tuesday, the speaker was trying to stress the political repercussions of a government shutdown to Republicans, warning them that no party wins with a closure.

Unlike last week when an angry and frustrated McCarthy unleashed foul language on his colleagues, he tried a different tack when addressing his members privately in the Capitol basement.

Appearing cool, calm and collected, McCarthy cast the funding plan as just a proposal and left time for rank-and-file members to debate, according to Republicans familiar with the meeting.

Still, one Republican after another rose to tell McCarthy that the current plan would not have their votes. With a slim majority, he needs almost every Republican on board.

Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., one of the negotiators for the Main Street group, urged her colleagues later to not let the “perfect be the enemy of the good.”

The showdown over the usually popular defense bill shows the difficulty ahead — it was the second time McCarthy had tried to advance the measure after he abruptly withdrew it from consideration last week.

The attempt to soothe tensions among Republicans comes as tempers are flaring and as big personalities try to seize the upper hand — some trying to lead and others hoping to disrupt any plans for compromise.

Florida’s two leading conservatives, Matt Gaetz and newcomer Byron Donalds, are sniping in the halls and across social media, as Gaetz criticizes the deal Donalds and others struck as insufficiently conservative.

And freshmen Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., pointedly attacked McCarthy as a “weak speaker.”

One seasoned lawmaker Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., warned the infighting could derail the House GOP, much the way it did for past speakers like John Boehner and Paul Ryan. Both retired earlier than expected amid constant threats of ousters.

Womack said he fears there is a “larger fight” brewing “that is more of a personality nature because of the conflict between certain members and the speaker.”

The monthlong funding package that McCarthy is pushing would impose steep spending cuts of more than 8% on many government services, while sparing defense and veterans accounts. It would last for 31 days in hopes of giving House Republicans time to approve the more traditional government funding bills.

The White House issued a memo detailing cuts from the Republican plan, saying it would mean fewer border patrol agents, school teacher aids, Meals on Wheels for seniors and Head Start slots for children.

“Extreme House Republicans are playing partisan games with peoples’ lives and marching our country toward a government shutdown,” the White House said.

Across the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned of the steep cuts Republicans are planning with their “cruel” and “reckless” spending plan.

At its core, House Republicans are trying to undo the deal McCarthy reached with Biden earlier this year to set federal funding levels as part of the debt ceiling fight. Conservatives rejected that measure then, even though it was approved and signed into law, and they are trying to dismantle it now.

But House Republicans are late to the effort, with time running short to act. Whatever bills they pass are certain to run aground in the Senate, where bipartisan groups of senators have already started approving their own funding bills, some at levels higher than the Biden-McCarthy agreement.

The roughly dozen Republicans who have voiced displeasure at McCarthy’s proposal see the current impasse as a make-or-break moment to hold the speaker to commitments to drastically cut topline government spending.

“If my party is not going to stand up, what is the right thing to do?” said Spartz. “No matter how hard, I don’t think anyone else will.”

When Spartz was asked whether she would support an effort to oust McCarthy, she said she was “open to everything.”

But Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who helped draft the proposal, all but dared his fellow Freedom Caucus members and other “so-called conservative colleagues” to reject it — particularly its “dream bill” provisions for dealing with the U.S. border with Mexico.

“If my conservative colleagues want to vote against that, go explain that,” Roy said.

The holdouts want steeper cuts that would adhere to the $1.47 trillion for annual discretionary funding they had initially advanced earlier this year to raise the nation’s debt limit.

One seasoned lawmaker, Republican Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, warned of pain ahead for Americans if the government shuts down.

“It would be disastrous,” he said. “I’ve never seen a time when a shutdown is good policy or good politics.”

Simpson suggested it was time for McCarthy to reach out to Democrats to strike a bipartisan deal.

But that would almost certainly lead McCarthy’s right-flank to try to hold a vote to oust him from the speaker’s job.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Speaker McCarthy faces an almost impossible task trying to unite House GOP and fund the government appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

NEW YORK (AP) — Depositors withdrew savings and investors broadly sold off bank shares Monday as the federal government raced to reassure Americans that the banking system was secure after two bank failures fed fears that more financial institutions could fall.

President Joe Biden insisted that the system was safe after the second- and third-largest bank failures in the nation’s history happened in the span of 48 hours. In response to the crisis, regulators guaranteed all deposits at the two banks and created a program that effectively threw a lifeline to other banks to shield them from a run on deposits.

“Your deposits will be there when you need them,” Biden told the public, seeking to project calm. He also said the banking executives responsible for the failures would be held accountable.

In other developments, the Federal Reserve announced that it would reassess its supervision of Silicon Valley Bank.

“We need to have humility and conduct a careful and thorough review of how we supervised and regulated this firm, and what we should learn from this experience,” said Michael Barr, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, who will lead the effort.

Regulators closed the bank Friday after depositors rushed to withdraw their funds all at once. The only larger failure in U.S. banking history was the 2008 collapse of Washington Mutual. New York-based Signature Bank was seized by regulators late Sunday in third-largest failure in the U.S.

In both cases, the government agreed to cover deposits, even those that exceeded the federally insured limit of $250,000.

Despite the message from the White House, investors broadly dumped shares in bank stocks. Shares of First Republic Bank closed down more than 60% even after the bank said it was taking emergency funding from the Federal Reserve and additional money from JPMorgan Chase.

Shares in KeyCorp and Comerica plunged by nearly a third. The stock of well-known franchises such as Charles Schwab, Fifth Third Bank, Truist and Huntington Bancshares all dropped by double digits.

The selloff happened in part because the country woke up to a new banking system and investors had to find the winners and losers, banking experts said.

There was no guarantee that the anxiety would not spread. Customers at other banks with deposits over the $250,000 limit remained at risk of losing access to their money for a time.

Just because the government covered for Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank “doesn’t mean they are going to cover for these smaller banks,” said Chris Caulfield, a senior partner at West Monroe.

In Asia, direct exposure to the risks from the U.S. failures seemed slim, at least so far. Hirokazu Matsuno, the Japanese government spokesman, told reporters a major ripple effect to the Japanese financial system was unlikely. But fears sent regional benchmarks lower in morning trading.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dropped 1.7%, extending losses from the day before. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped 2.1%, and South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.9%. The Shanghai Composite index lost 0.7%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 1%.

Wesley Zheng, co-founder and CEO of Posh Robotics, which is working to develop sustainable batteries, said he will move $4 million from Silicon Valley Bank to JPMorgan Chase.

“No more small banks. We have so many other things we’re working on, we don’t want to be worried about figuring out the risk management of the banks we’re working with,” he said.

Further, the government’s actions suggested it would stand behind all deposits if doing so prevents damage to the broader economy.

“Everything is now covered. That’s a fact. No matter how specialized or isolated your bank is, if there’s a risk of contagion, regulators have made it clear that they are going to intervene,” said Norbert Michel, a banking policy expert at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute.

Amid the selloff of midsize banks, investors kept relatively calm over the health of the nation’s biggest banking bulwarks, such as Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Investors apparently concluded that the only place to be safe in banking was with the nation’s most strictly regulated institutions.

Notably, shares in JPMorgan Chase — the nation’s biggest bank with more than $3 trillion in assets — fell a modest 1.8% on Monday.

Regional banks were seen as the riskiest, since they do not have the scale to compete against larger competitors. Large account balances — once seen as a positive sign that a bank’s clients are well off — were a liability since they could be withdrawn at the first sign of trouble.

“I wouldn’t want to be running a regional bank right now where my services are no different from my competition,” Caulfield said.

International regulators also had to step in to ease fears. The Bank of England and U.K. Treasury said they facilitated the sale of a Silicon Valley Bank subsidiary in London to HSBC, Europe’s biggest bank. The deal protected 6.7 billion pounds ($8.1 billion) of deposits.

Under the plan announced by U.S. regulators, depositors at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank were able to access their money. A new Fed program will allow banks to post certain high-quality securities as collateral and borrow from a government emergency fund.

The Treasury has set aside $25 billion to offset any losses. However, Fed officials said they do not expect to have to use that money, given that the securities posted as collateral have a very low risk of default.

New York bank regulators took possession of Signature Bank on Sunday, ousting its leaders and handing day-to-day control over to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the decision by the state Department of Financial Services was aimed at holding off a bigger crisis involving more banks.

“Our view was to make sure that the entire banking community here in New York was stable, that we can project calm,” Hochul said Monday at a news conference.

She said a high volume of withdrawals that began last week continued with online transactions through the weekend. The bank was open Monday under the name of Signature Bridge Bank.

Signature, which was founded more than two decades ago, has about 40 offices across the country and says it focuses on banking for privately owned businesses, their owners and senior managers.

Though Sunday’s steps marked the most extensive government intervention in the banking system since the 2008 financial crisis, the actions were relatively limited compared with 15 years ago.

The two failed banks themselves have not been rescued, and taxpayer money has not been provided to them.

Michele Barry, a teacher who was at Silicon Valley Bank on Monday, said members of the FDIC and bank employees were available to answer questions.

Barry, who also runs an after-school program for children, wanted to make sure that her four employees would be paid. She was told that all checks from Friday would be honored, along with her automatic payments.

Barry left enough in her account to cover the payments, but she transferred the bulk of her money over to another bank. She said Biden’s reassurance was helpful.

“I’m from South Africa. Chances are if this happened in South Africa, nobody would insure your money,” she said.

___ Rugaber and Megerian reported from Washington. Sweet and Bussewitz reported from New York. Associated Press writers Hope Yen in Washington; Michelle Chapman in New York; Jennifer McDermott in Providence, Rhode Island; Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey; and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Government races to reassure US that banking system is safe appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Muhammad Naeem | Contributor

“Drop by drop, a river is made.” I remember these words from a wise old man who was teaching me about strength in numbers. “Brick by brick, a building is made,” that was a corollary, implying the same meanings. A drop by itself, as is evident, has no power. A brick is week on its own and can easily be crushed. But, a building can stand tall in front of a hurricane, and a river can unleash power to light up cities and run our entire infrastructure.

I recently travelled to Texas, to be part of the graduation ceremonies for my son, who is part of the United States Air Force. Never did this adage fit more than it did that day, when I realized the enormity of the combined strength of each and every individual airman marching in unison on the field. I could see all their feet moving together at the bottom of that sea of our soldiers, with a rhythm that filled our hearts with pride. But there was more to it than just the discipline displayed by all the men and women in uniform. There was the realization, that those warriors, along with other recruits in all other military branches, represented our awesome combined military power that the world has NEVER seen before.

My son joined the Air Force with his best friend. To us, those two are just little punks, who think that they are all that, but in reality, they are just two young men with their quirks and insecurities, not sure of their place in this world, or even the direction their future should take as they grow into strong, productive men. But on that field, along with all the other punks, they showed discipline and determination that left me breathless.

Each of those weak links, when working together, became the wall that would stand between us as a nation, and any adversary, foe, or enemy that would dare look at us the wrong way. All those sons and daughters, when they come together, become the mighty force that can turn the world upside down; that can move planets out of their orbit; and that can literally obliterate the sun if we chose to do so. We walked around the Air Force Base and watched young men and women train for whatever the future holds, to defend this nation against all known and unknown factors, and to become something above and beyond anything the world has ever imagined. All those military planes flying overhead, all the sounds heard over ground, and all that activity around us with the singular purpose of producing super men and super women, who will defend this nation with their lives. It all represented true patriotism. The real, genuine, and authentic patriotism; a dictionary definition of true devotion to one’s country and vigorous support for its values. There can never be such an ostentatious display of true and dedicated love for our nation as the one we experienced, and I mean that in the strongest possible way—experienced—that day. It
was real, it was tangible, and we could feel it not only with our emotions, but with all of our senses. We could hear it, see it, breathe it in, even taste it, and we could literally feel it with each and every pore of our bodies.

All the graduates marched together to showcase the machine that they had all become, following commands with precision and timing. The pride that flowed in their body language; the words that were spoken by the commanders, officers, and generals present during the ceremony; the salutes and tears that flowed from the veterans present in the crowd, from all branches of the military; and the heads held way high and chests extended way out by the parents, siblings, and relatives of those graduates, all created a magic of unbelievable intensity.

Our son has taken his place among the true elites. He is part of something big and important. He has committed his life to this nation, and we had no choice but to shed a few tears ourselves. Whether those were tears of joy that he has become a lot more than what his mother and I could have ever hoped for, or they were tears of appreciation for him and his fellow heroes, who stand ready to tear down any and all obstacles that stand between the greatness of our nation and the threats that may appear to try to rip our core, or even tears of pride that we felt as the parents of such a selfless, brave young man, who by virtue of him being a part of our mighty force, has also indoctrinated us into this special group of families who play a vital role in the safety, security, and the defense of our country.

This nation is a superpower only because it stands on the shoulders of these mighty pillars of strength. It is only strong and mighty, because it is defended by these giants, who can topple mountains if they get in the way. It is invincible because of these men and women in uniform, who looked invincible on their own, and even as individual beings, they were towers of strength, and not just bricks. These drops looked like
mighty rivers of their own.

While his mother hugged him and kissed him, I couldn’t help but notice that my feet were moving to the same rhythm and beat as the ones being displayed by other recruits. The flag has never looked and felt as strong a symbol of our nation as it did on that day, when my son took the oath to defend it and to make sure that it would always fly high and fly proud. We wish him, his fellow airmen, and to all the soldiers that are becoming part of our military power, the best in the world, and we wish that our nation would learn from their shared commitment to this nation and join forces to stand behind them as one nation under God, and not the tattered, divided, and bitter populace that the politicians are turning us into.

• DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various author’s articles on this Opinion piece or elsewhere online or in the newspaper where we have articles with the header “COLUMN/EDITORIAL & OPINION” do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints or official policies of the Publisher, Editor, Reporters or anybody else in the Staff of the Hemet and San Jacinto Chronicle Newspaper.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Our Strength appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

In the race for state Controller, the Republican lost to a newcomer by more than 10 percentage points even after gaining nearly every major newspaper endorsement and raising almost twice as much money. Alex Padilla, in his first race for U.S. Senate, was challenged by a perennial Republican candidate he had already defeated for Secretary of State four years earlier by 29 percentage points. Gov. Gavin Newsom was so unconcerned about his re-election that he raised barely a quarter of the money he had in the 2021 recall attempt and he spent most of what he raised on ballot measures or for television commercials in Texas and Florida criticizing their Republican governors.

With little to motivate voters to the polls and a few congressional races in California that could determine control of the U.S. House, Democrats in the Legislature even placed a measure to protect abortion rights on the ballot at least in part to encourage their voters to turn out. There were no other measures that appeared likely to motivate casual voters.

The most expensive ballot fight in California history saw about a half billion dollars spent on two sports gambling measures with both losing by wide margins. Voters rejected a measure about kidney dialysis for the third time. They upheld a ban on flavored tobacco. And they granted more money to arts and music in public schools.

Perhaps the most interesting question on the California ballot in 2020 was whether voters would raise taxes on millionaires to pay for electric cars and charging stations. Californians had already raised taxes on the wealthy twice in recent years, raising the rate for top earners higher than any other state. The measure also responded to the high priority California voters place on climate change policy. But Proposition 30 lost by a wide margin with experts saying the biggest reason was opposition from the governor. Newsom didn’t think a tax increase was necessary and he appeared in TV commercials to say the measure was a “Trojan horse” attempt by the rideshare company Lyft, the biggest funder, to have taxpayers help it comply with a requirement to log 90% of its miles in electric cars by 2030.

Outside of the election, California saw a record $100 billion surplus in its state budget, which grew to an unprecedented $308 billion, the centerpiece of which was a $9.5 billion tax rebate that sent checks to most Californians. Much of the surplus was spent on other one-time costs, such as paying down debt. But the budget raised money for social services enough to reduce the poverty rate. It saw a windfall to public schools, although the first test scores since the pandemic revealed a concerning drop in academic performance.

The budget also spent more money to increase housing affordability and address homelessness, but housing production remained slow and a new count of the homeless found the population grew by about 15%.

California’s budget is highly reliant on income taxes from a narrow slice of wealthy taxpayers, which makes budget revenue exceptionally volatile with so much income tied to Wall Street. We saw that volatility by year’s end. Barely five months after spending the $100 billion surplus, the Legislature’s budget analyst predicted the state would see a deficit next year of $25 billion and possibly more if there’s a recession.

We’re grateful to our partners at The James Irvine Foundation, who both suggested and funded the creation of this Primer. We hope it helps you learn a bit more about how California government works, and that it informs or even inspires your participation in our democracy.

• DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various author’s articles on this Opinion piece or elsewhere online or in the newspaper where we have articles with the header “COLUMN/EDITORIAL & OPINION” do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints or official policies of the Publisher, Editor, Reporters or anybody else in the Staff of the Hemet and San Jacinto Chronicle Newspaper.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post What has California’s government been up to lately? Here’s your updated primer appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Rusty Strait | Senior Reporter

Is it possible that the City of Hemet has come to a time when they should consider how they govern our fair City? Since 2000, 12 or 13 city managers have come and gone. Sometimes they are fired. Other times they just can’t seem to handle a City Council that wants to manage the City Manager and that’s not the way it works. The City had a great assistant City Manager when Steve Temple left – Mark Orme. He was well qualified to replace Steve. The City loved him. He was the “go-to” guy if you wanted anything at City Hall. For reasons to this day unknown, that did not satisfy our esteemed council. Since that time, City Managers have come and go and nobody ever knows who the last manager’s assistant is or was.

Citizens of Hemet often approach journalists with their problems with the City Council and I give them all the same answer. “I’ll look into it.” That’s about the totality of a reporter’s influence with civil authorities.

I have looked into this one because I share their anxiety that so many city managers have come and gone in the past 20 years; I wonder how many of us know the difference between a City and a Mayor as the City’s Executive Head. Just what is the difference? Well, I looked it up.

WHAT IS A MAYOR?

According to legal minds who know these things, A mayor is a political figure who wins an election held in their City by the residents of that City. He or she acts as the representative of the City they serve by attending events like public forums, ceremonies, ribbon cuttings and fundraisers. When significant events affect the community, the mayor may address the public and exert his position to bring about a conclusion to the matter.

Under a Mayor/Council government, the mayor has a number of responsibilities.

He or she may be required to represent the City in a number of situations:

1. Address the general public and media on matters that may confuse or affect the community at large.

2. Ensure City Officials uphold a professional and positive demeanor and holding them accountable for any negative actions or decisions.

3. Develop and implement policies based on the input and needs of community members.

4. Collaborate with City Council members to make policy decisions or approve bills.

5. Attend City Council meetings regularly to give voice to decisions and pitch new policies.

6. Oversee various public departments like schools or police precincts to ensure all employees follow policies and procedures.

7. Appoint and remove various city administrators and commissioners as needed.

WHAT IS A CITY MANAGER?

A city manager is a chief executive who is in charge of all major local government decisions. They typically serve in full-time roles and implement most decisions that mayors or council members make. Usually, the city council or mayor may appoint the city manager to their role based in their experience, education and skills. They oversee the day-to-day operations of all local government departments to ensure they’re functioning efficiently.

Depending on the type of government they work within, the city manager may work alongside a mayor when making decisions and building policies. Many city managers build the community and government’s annual budget to ensure all areas receive the proper funding. They may pitch this budget to the city council and mayor for approval. Typical duties a city manager may hold:

1. Implementing and carrying out policies.

2. Overseeing all local government departments.

3. Hiring employees to serve in various departments.

4. Managing and receiving government budgets.

5. Attending and moderating city council meetings and all items on the agenda.

6. Developing efficient and logical solutions to daily local government issues that may appear and creating strategies to prevent them from reoccurring.

WHAT ARE THE PRIMARY DIFFERENCES?

A mayor is elected by the voters in the City he represents. He or she is elected to serve a specific term which may or may not be extended. The electorate can vote him out and he may subject to term limits.

City Managers are hired by the City Council and seldom align themselves with any political party. His time of service is guided by a contract with the City, which may be ended with a council vote or continued to be renewed at the council’s discretion.

Mayors spend a lot of time getting organized for a run for the mayor’s office. A Mayor raises funds to finance a campaign that can be fairly low in a small town and almost exorbitant in a large-sized city. Citizens make their decisions on who to vote for based on how well they present themselves to the voters. City Managers are discouraged from involving themselves in any political activities other than voting on election day.

Most city managers are well trained in the job by the time they seek the position or are sought out for the position. As a mayor, many are well prepared for the job, having served in other governmental positions, but it is not a requirement. Sometimes good looks will get you elected or a well-financed campaign will do the job.

The primary difference, as you can see, is the City Manager may work under a mayor or by dictums of a city council. A mayor, no matter how you look at it, is elected by the voters. A city manager is appointed by contract.

Apparently, the City of Hemet does not have a very good record in selecting City Managers. If so many of the major municipalities in the country prefer an elected Mayor, why not Hemet? They’ve already taken the first step by electing council members within the ward in which they live. They are responsible to the people who reside in the district in which they live. Might be a good idea to follow suit. in the executive branch. Just sayin’

rustystrait@gmail.com

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Maybe Hemet has the Wrong Form of Government appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

S.E. Williams | Contributed

I can hardly think of any job where–if you continuously failed to meet performance expectations or follow policy or continuously misused employer funds–you would not be subjected to some form of disciplinary action up to and including termination. The same does not appear to hold true however relative to elected officials and/or heads of government agencies. Again and again in the inland region, egregious failures across both counties are numerous yet the only one who feels the pinch of less than satisfactory performance are those impacted by such failures. Rarely are those who create the problems held accountable.

Consider those detained in Riverside County jails who are dying often without explanation and rarely is anyone held accountable. And then, there are the continuing stream of settlements related to office misconduct including $77M in settlements in recent years. Meanwhile, across the county failures of administration are rampant. For example, a school district settles sex abuse lawsuit with 10 elementary school children for $13.7 million; Turnover, high caseloads hinder child protective services, Riverside County grand jury says; Residents confront officials after probe finds Riverside County ‘failed’ 13 Turpin siblings and the list goes on.

A similar trend holds true in San Bernardino County. Inmates are dying, investigations are pending while the county also settles suits for police misconduct. In one case earlier this year the county agreed to pay $4.5 million to the family of man shot by sheriff deputies. Meanwhile, like Riverside County, San Bernardino taxpayers are victims of the same “settlements for government failures” way of life with little public accountability. For example, San Bernardino County recently settled a foster child sexual abuse case for $7.8 million; the county settled a $640,000 lawsuit with a former top executive; the county settled a 2019 lawsuit that alleged it made it “unnecessarily difficult” to apply for General Relief Funds; San Bernardino County, California Sheriff’s Office Settles Civil Rights Suit, and just like in Riverside County, the list goes on.

Inland Empire counties settle large suits on an ongoing basis almost as if it was a normal part of doing business. But is it? And if it is, should it be? I think most would agree an occasional misstep is to be expected but an ongoing pattern of poor practices is not. And it now seems one of San Bernardino County’s multimillion dollar settlements may not be fully resolved. About two years ago the county agreed to pay Rancho Cucamonga developer Jeff Burum $65 million to settle a civil case associated with criminal charges brought against him stemming from the infamous $102 million Colonies settlement related Burum’s Colonies development in Rancho Cucamonga. The county’s $102 million dollar settlement eventually resulted in criminal charges against Burum and others that did not hold up in court resulting in a subsequent suit by Burum and the Colonies Partners Investors group he leads against the county that led to the $65 million dollar settlement two years ago that is now in question. Ironshore Specialty Insurance, a subsidiary of Liberty Mutual, that insures the county filed an insurance coverage lawsuit against San Bernardino in late August.

The claim was filed in the state’s Central District Court. The suit, seeks a declaration that Ironshore has no duty to defend, indemnify or reimburse the county in connection with six underlying malicious prosecution lawsuits which the county settled for $69 million. Ironshore claims the county entered into the settlement agreement without its consent. It also asserts that the 2011 prosecutions against Burum and others were part of a “conspiracy to retaliate against the Colonies II Plaintiffs as part of a decades-long dispute over land and water rights in Upland [which resulted in the initial $102 million settlement] culminating in a malicious prosecution of Burum.” How the the insurer’s action against the county will ultimately resolve is yet to be determined and is just the latest chapter in the Colonies saga that has dragged on for 20 years. Every action and reaction over this extensive period has cost taxpayers untold amounts in legal fees that will only become publicly available when the cases come to final closure.

According to a report by insurancenewsnet.com, no matter how the issue resolves Ironshore is not responsible for the full $69 million settlement. Its policy with the county is only for payments above $52.5 million. As a result, if Ironshore loses it will be required to pay $16.5 million for the settlement. On the other hand however, if Ironshore is successful, county taxpayers will be left accountable for this amount. Sixteen million nine hundred dollars may be just another check written to correct leadership and system failures by San Bernardino officials like the laundry lists detailed above. But, $16.9 million is a lot of money to residents in a county like San Bernardino where the poverty rate is higher than state and national averages. Certainly $16.9 million dollars could be better used to feed those in local food deserts, house the county’s homeless, and/or dozens of other worthy endeavors to help empower local residents.

This case also highlights the need for accountability mentioned earlier in this piece. Where is the accountability for this 20 year fiasco? What has changed in planning commission procedures to ensure such complications over land and water rights are avoided in relation to future developments or has the county just been lucky over the past 20 years? As climate change and drought continue to impact water supplies, issues related to water rights become more critical. The community deserves answers to these questions. Of course this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Multi-million Dollar Settlements and the Need for Government Accountability appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.

Jack Cashill | Contributed

On reading about the Saturday arrest of pro-life activist Mark Houck, I thought the author at this alternative site had to be exaggerating. It struck me as beyond belief that two dozen or so armed FBI agents would swarm the house of a Catholic father of seven, rifles drawn, and arrest him in front of his weeping children for anything short of murder.

I have had to recalibrate my belief system. The “crime” fell quite a bit short of murder. On October 13, 2021, Houck brought his 12-year-old son with him for his weekly sidewalk counseling outside of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Philadelphia. A volunteer escort at the abortion clinic reportedly called Houck’s son a “fag” among other insults and threatened him. Houck pushed the man away from his son, and the man fell. Houck, the founder of an organization that promotes Christian virtue among men, was not charged with a crime.

However petty the incident, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, had Houck seized at gunpoint nearly a year later and bragged about the arrest. Said PR hack Jennifer Crandall in a press release, Houck “assaulted a man because he was a volunteer reproductive health care clinic escort.”

Before proceeding, this sentence needs parsing. The most problematic word is “because.” Houck has had hundreds of opportunities to assault escorts if their offense in his eyes was to be an escort. Although the press release claims two incidents on that same day with the man, Houck had no prior or subsequent altercations.

Then there is the Orwellian phrase “reproductive health care clinic escort.” Ms. Crandall is somehow fusing the “reproductive rights” euphemism favored by abortion activists with the function of the escort, whose mission, of course, is to assure that no reproduction takes place on his watch.

“Assault is always a serious offense, and under the FACE Act, if the victim is targeted because of their association with a reproductive healthcare clinic, it is a federal crime,” huffed U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Romero. Her piety was echoed by still another Jacqueline, Jacqueline Maguire, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Division.

“Put simply, violence is never the answer,” said agent Maguire. “Violating the FACE Act by committing a physical assault is a serious crime for which the FBI will work to hold offenders accountable.” The DoJ has not only bastardized the language, but it has also weaponized the law to advance the interests of the Democratic Party. That this arrest took place in the politically contested state of Pennsylvania is not likely a coincidence.

GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano saw the raid for what it was. “This show of force was carried out by the Biden regime against ordinary Americans is an abuse of power that stands against the fundamental principles on which our country was founded,” said Mastriano. “As Governor, I will not allow the police state of Biden to enforce his persecution against his political enemies on sacred Pennsylvania soil.”

For the record, FACE is short for “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances.” As has become much too obvious, only one side of the abortion debate has been awarded federal protection. Since the leak of the Dobbs decision on May 3, attacks against pro-life entities and the Catholic church, already a problem, have only escalated.

The Catholic News Agency reports 97 such attacks in the months following the leak, 53 of them against pregnancy centers. These include vulgar pro-abortion graffiti, the beheading of statues, the desecration of altars, threats, theft, and even arson. Several have involved the disruption of church services and nasty confrontations with the police.

At least two of these incidents took place in the jurisdiction of the two Jacquelines. In May 2022, for instance, the glass front doors of Notre Dame de Lourdes church in Swarthmore were spray-painted with the unsubtle message: ‘You do not have the right to decide what people can do, #ProChoice.” In June, vandals defaced St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Philadelphia with pro-abortion graffiti.

As far as anyone knows, the DoJ has ignored all these incidents despite the implicit civil rights violations involved. For its apparatchiks, “extremists” like Houck are the enemy. “If convicted,” they tell us, “the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and fines of up to $350,000.”

The Twitter responses to Houck’s arrest suggest a widespread indifference on the Left to the rule of law and common decency. Here is a representative tweet from a woman named Mary, one of the few without any obscenities: “You’re REALLY leaning into the ‘Catholic’ part of this story, when the truth is that a professional ‘manly man’ who spends his days harassing vulnerable women physically assaulted a real man TWICE. Mark Houck makes his living as the leader of a toxic masculinity cult; arrest him.”

Has the FBI gone too far? For the Left, if the enemy is the right, it cannot go far enough.

• DISCLAIMER: The opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by the various author’s articles on this Opinion piece or elsewhere online or in the newspaper where we have articles with the header “COLUMN/EDITORIAL & OPINION” do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints or official policies of the Publisher, Editor, Reporters or anybody else in the Staff of the Hemet and San Jacinto Chronicle Newspaper.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

The post Did the FBI Finally Go Too Far? appeared first on The Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle.